back to me”. He remembered the advice of his professor in Pastoral Theology: “If you get stuck, pull all the stops! Take a quick look at your notes and continue!” Wendelin did not need it. Though the pulpit was new to him, he decided to speak freely from the beginning. But he carefully drafted every sermon. Unfortunately, he destroyed his notes as he did most other private papers.
Wendelin’s father considered it an honour to see his son off by “taking a good load of furniture, bed linen and clothes” to Haselstauden, while the young priest, in the company of two clerics from the neighbourhood, followed by coach. Haselstauden, however, wrapped itself in silence. Pfanner was not welcomed by the municipal administrator nor was a single villager on hand to help offload his “dowry”. Strange people, his father thought, shook his head and returned home on the spot.
The rectory seemed to have neither a kitchen nor a cook. The young priest did not see anyone until the following morning when, entering the church to say Mass, a grumbling old sacristan showed him round. But when he stood at the altar he was surprised that “the center aisle was filled with people. It was clear to me that they had not come so much to welcome me as to see who ‘the new one’ was.” How guarded, sceptical and suspicious these Haselstaudeners were! He wondered if he would ever be able to break down the wall behind which they were hiding. He did when typhoid broke out the following spring. It was a onetime opportunity to get to know them, and he seized it straight.
Wendelin Pfanner shortly after his Ordination to the Priesthood
Abbot Francis:
“I visited every affected family. People needed me because hardly anyone dared to go near them for fear of infection. They even told me how much they appreciated the visits of ‘the young gentleman’, as they called me. Their attitude towards me changed overnight. The church began to fill up, not now from curiosity but from a genuine desire to hear what I had to say.”
Biding his time and arming himself with much patience, young Fr. Pfanner won most of his parishioners back to the Church. He listened to them and learned to speak in a way they could understand. He instructed their children in the Faith, heard Confession and sought out the lapsed and critical. Occasionally, he read Leviticus to people who did not keep the Sunday holy, as for example, the innkeeper who when it was time for Sunday Mass sent his hired hands to work in the farm. He also persuaded two wealthy factory owners, both native Haselstaudeners, to donate stain glass windows for the parish church, Our Lady of the Visitation, which he wished to embellish. Their generosity bordered on a miracle. When twenty years later, as abbot of Mariannhill, he visited them, one remarked: “It would have been better if you had not become a Trappist. Why did you have to go so far away, first to these godforsaken Bosnians and then to the Hottentots in Africa? Haven’t we got Hottentots enough to convert?!” Nevertheless, he gave him a generous donation for the “black Hottentots”.
As for the “pagans of Haselstauden”, the young priest did all he could to strengthen their faith. For example, he invited excellent Redemptorist or Jesuit speakers to hold a parish mission. They did so with much success, the said factory owners allowing their employees to attend even on working days.
Whey Cures in Switzerland. Farewell to Haselstauden
Wendelin’s health deteriorated during his very first year in the ministry. This, though, was not the result of lack of care, because his sister Kreszentia, who had decided to stay single, was his housekeeper and looked very well after him. He developed a lung condition (TB?) and his doctor suggested that he drink whey at Gais in Canton Appenzell, Switzerland. The weeks he spent there were restful and relaxing but they did not bring about the desired cure. Abbot Francis: “The peaceful atmosphere and carefree time, the healthy air and diet probably helped me more than the whey.” As long as he had to preach, teach and hear Confessions there was little hope of recovery, leave alone a long life. So he decided to buy a burial site for himself and his sister just beside the Haselstauden church. For the rest, he served without sparing himself. In Anton Jochum, pastor of a neighbouring parish, he had a best friend and adviser. “When I was not sure about something, I consulted him and he always put me at ease, so that I saw my way again. I also gained a lot by listening to him explaining the Catechism and preaching. An excellent man, he had only one fault: he snuffed and that even during Mass! I drew his attention to it ever so cautiously but he just shrugged it off: “Alright, alright. Young men have fine manners! But you are right. Trouble is that I am too old to change.”
Though Fr. Pfanner was burdened with parochial duties he continued to mingle with people, his own family included. They could count on him. His father passed away in September 1856, but his stepmother lived for another twenty-four years. Her oldest son, Franz Xavier, married into a family at Gruenenbach in Bavaria, where as a young man he fell to his death from the threshing floor. When Wendelin’s twin brother Johann married outside the village, the Langen-Hub farmstead switched hands. Johann raised ten children. Nine were baptized by their priest uncle; the oldest was kicked by a horse and died in 1905.
In 1859, the vicar general of Vorarlberg sent Fr. Pfanner to Agram (Zagreb) in Croatia as confessor to a community of Mercy Sisters. Because these had originally come from Southern Tyrol, they were German speaking and needed a German-speaking priest. So Fr. Pfanner left Austria but not before inviting his unsuspecting parishioners to an auction sale of the cacti he had raised. They were a rare spectacle and for him a hobby the doctor had recommended as a pastime for the long winter months. He had a green thumb and in no time transformed the rectory into a sea of blossoms.
Abbot Francis:
“How little did I dream then that one day I would live in a land where the most luxurious cacti grow wild like the nettles in Europe! I had collected some thirty species and by grafting them one on another top of another I produced spectacular forms: balls, snakes, rocks and exotic shapes. I also had the exquisite Eriesy. From books I read I knew that it produced an enchantingly beautiful blossom. So when I found a bud on my specimen I was beside myself with excitement. Why, I even postponed a trip to Munich just to see it open!”
Fr. Pfanner traveled to Agram by train, via Landshut, Linz (where he visited his former professor Franz Joseph Rudigier, now bishop) and Vienna.
Confessor to Nuns and Convicts
We may wonder why he was given an appointment for which we feel he was not cut out. The explanation may be found in Brixen. There, his vicar general had consulted the seminary staff and been told by the rector of the Redemptorists, who knew Fr. Pfanner from parish missions, that he was not only a fine pastor but also an excellent confessor. Or was there another reason?
Abbot Francis:
“It was known to everyone in Brixen that I was a tough fellow and that sometimes people, including nuns, needed a firm hand. Whichever, I ended up in Agram …. As was my habit I said Mass quickly. Therefore the young priests at the convent and perhaps also the one or other Sister did not pin too much hope on the new confessor. They said: ‘Short suit (cassock worn in Vorarlberg), short Mass’ … There were three other priests in residence: the superior, four years my senior and like myself from the Brixen Diocese, a young preacher and a still younger teacher, both Croatians and lecturers at the seminary. We took meals together but otherwise had each our separate apartment. The Sisters cared for me in every regard and paid me a handsome salary besides.”
Fr. Pfanner’s main responsibility in Agram was to hear the Confessions of the Sisters, preach a German homily every Sunday and teach Religion at the convent school. When one day the chimney caught fire on top of the priests’ house, it was the Vorarlberger, practical and fearless as ever, who climbed the roof and from a window in the attic directed the water supply to the top. It was his day! The Sisters admired
